From the sociological point of view I cannot imagine a world without compulsory, god declared, laws for basic behaviors, such as sex-related, murder-related, and god-worship related behaviors. My outlook comes from my certainty that some minds are susceptible to the seeking of such compulsions, and my certainty that some other minds are susceptible to a need to supply such compulsions, sometimes as themselves as the authority, and sometimes as representatives of higher authority. The latter group always seems to produce some very successful iterations, from Moses to Jim Jones. . . As it is said in commerce, if there is demand, there will always be folks who will make it a life quest to supply that demand.
If what I'm saying has bases in fact, and if the atheistic challenge is to disenfranchise, dis-empower, organized religion, and other publicists of drivel, then how can mere logical, rational, rhetoric be looked to in order to bring about this goal? It seems evident to me that such rhetoric does not have the needed determinants to effect the goal. Rationality cannot seem to supply the needed compulsions. Thus, rationality goes unheeded.
I have an idea for a possible solution. What if we successfully substituted a new word for truth. What if it became common to say VERIPOOP in place of VERITAS? From that small acorn might grow reexamination of the human faculty for knowing, and claiming truth. It should be obvious to all, that we humans do not have a truth-knowing faculty. We can only know human level truth, which is always temporary and finitely circumscribed. Grass was known to be green for a long time in history, but, as we all know, green is not a property of grass any more. Nature supplies color only to those who are not color blind. Greenness is a human thing, not a grass thing. Reflecting white light at a certain wavelength is intrinsic to grass, but not color. We humans can know only truth that is bound to change in time, but "real" truth cannot change. It is already truth. Where else could it go?
Yes, there are mathematical proofs that would present themselves as truth forever. But it's easy to overlook the fact that all scientific and mathematical pronouncements are abstracts of reality. They may be correct within the confines of the postulates that undergird them, but reality is greater than any finite number of postulates. Further, postulates are arbitrarily chosen. Parallel lines may never meet, or always meet, or meet just under specified specified conditions. Therefore, that which is correct is not necessarily truth.This is a fact about the human knowledge horizon, the human condition. The horizon, wherever one draws it, however far we might advance in knowledge, is inexorably there. Yet the wild eyed compulsion addicts are willing to die for what? Why it's their "truth," of course. So, I say that the very word needs to be expunged, because, amazingly, every time it is uttered, it presents a lie. It claims that someone has corralled truth.
VERIPOOP would put us in our place. A new appreciation may develop of the human knowability horizon. How can one be an extremist when one knows that what one proclaims with vehemence is VERIPOOP? It seems to have a calming effect. Scientific veripoops are wonderful. The fact that presently the scientific method doesn't allow truth to be considered truth forever, as it did when science was in the hands of the compulsive knowers of Europe, (e.g. the Galileo problem), is also wonderful. But there is no other word available currently. Science must call its temporary findings truth, especially on true or false tests. Yet the facts show that they are a step down from truth. They are VERIPOOP!
Edit: It seems that thre3e is sort of trolling, given the four new user accounts that first commented under this article (tamara, mind, jozsef, gyorgy - come on, two new Hungarian names in one day) and whose writing style resembles that of thre3e. I leave what I have written so far, but refrain from further discussion. Thanks NMJablonski for pointing out.
I didn't know how much serious you were and I suspected that not too much, either because the word you have chosen or because you have sort of denied that. But sometimes I dislike even writings which are not entirely serious. (In particular I don't like things which are difficult to tell whether they are serious or not.)
When I hear (paraphrased) "there is a problem P; I have a possible solution S", it seems natural to interpret that as "S (possibly) solves P". If I hear "what if we successfully substituted", it seems natural to see it as a polite way to say "we should substitute". (I don't want to argue over it, only am trying to pinpoint from where the misunderstanding may stem.)
But science is as close to the truth as one can get, and there are plenty of words which admit the possibility of error if there is a need (hypothesis, claim, conjecture, guess, model, theory). It is not clear what concept you want to introduce which is not already covered by those words.
If I fail in communication, then that is reason to keep on explaining. You are free to give up if you want of course, and I can well understand it given the overall negative reaction which you haven't expected, but there is nothing dishonourable with continued explanation.
It's still me, thre3e, but the thing wouldn't let me sign in with it. Thank you for the good will that shows up in your reply. I am an old retired academic. I've sat through many heated arguments in the faculty club and lounge, but what I found at this website is absolutely new to me. I think that maybe the best way I can convey why I'm soooo amazed is by rendering a few responses as I expected them to come in. Do you actually think that coining a word would slow down terrorists? Dream on fella! OR Every high school kid knows that we have truth with a capi... (read more)